Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Mufti concocted own brand of antisemitism

More evidence has come to light that the wartime Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, developed his own brand of antisemitism, lacing half-remembered Koranic episodes with modern Christian anti-Jewish tropes. Boris Havel supports his argument by quoting from the pamphlet distributed to members of the Bosnian Muslim SS division, Islam and Judaism.Article in Middle East Quarterly(Summer 2015):

The booklet Islam and Judaism offers a stark illustration of
the lengths taken by the mufti to demonize Jews and Judaism. Qur'anic
passages are freely paraphrased without reference to sura and verse
while apparent quotations (like those about Jews converting insincerely
to Islam in order to drag Muslims away from their faith) are nowhere to
be found in the Qur'an, certainly not in the translation by Muhammed
Pandža and Džemaluddin Čaušević[20]
used by Yugoslav Muslims since 1937.

Indicating the pamphlet's clear
propaganda and incitement purpose, this sloppiness reflected both Hajj
Amin's poor religious credentials and his apparent conviction that the
pamphlet would not be subjected to critical scrutiny or even read by
believers well-versed in the Qur'an. For, though bestowed with the title
of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine's highest religious
authority, it was common knowledge at the time that Hajj Amin did not
possess the necessary religious credentials for such a lofty post.
Indeed, he even failed to make the final short-list for the mufti's post
having received only nine of the electors' sixty-four votes; but the
Husseinis and their British champions forced one of the final three
candidates to step down in his favor, paving the road to his
appointment.[21]

Some of the pamphlet's assertions indicate the mufti's deficient
familiarity with Islamic history and theology. Nor was Hajj Amin averse
to introducing novelties and fabrications for the purpose of defaming
Jews. His text contains details with an unconventional interpretation of
Qur'anic accounts, some of them erroneous. He accuses the Jews of
having "attempted to undermine Muhammad's honor by spreading a rumor
that Muhammad's wife Aisha committed adultery."

But renowned Islamic
scholars, including Tabari, to whom the mufti refers in the booklet, do
not mention the Jews at all in the context of this event: Aisha's
accusers were all Arabs. Some came from the tribe of Kharzaj; at least
one was from the Quraish, Muhammad's tribe, and another was the sister
of Muhammad's wife. Their names are listed in both Ibn Ishak's and
Tabari's accounts of the event. After God revealed Aisha's innocence to
Muhammad, some of the accusers were punished by flogging.[22]

Furthermore, the mufti claimed that Muhammad attacked Khaibar because
its Jews bribed Arab tribes to attack Medina. The sources, however, do
not mention any such activity by the Khaibar Jews. Khaibar was in
alliance with the Arab tribe of Ghatafan—which at this point seemed to
be rather defensive—with the Quraish, and with the Persians. Muhammad's
attack occurred shortly after he concluded the peace of Hudaibiya (March
628) with the Meccans. It is hard to envisage that Muhammad's enemies
would plot an attack from the north without Meccan support. On the
contrary, it seems that he concluded the peace of Hudaibiya to secure
his southern front so as to be able to attack the Khaibar Jews, whose
Persian allies had just been defeated by the Byzantine army.[23]

There
remains a deep connection between Islamism and Nazism based on the
common characteristics of racism, nationalism, religious bigotry, and
intolerance. Hitler's Mein Kampf has been a bestseller for years in
predominantly Muslim countries, including the Palestinian Authority and
Turkey.

There was, however, an event reminiscent of the mufti's story that
occurred a year earlier. The Jews of Medina had invited the Quraish and
Ghatafan tribes to attack Muhammad. It was at this point, after the
Battle of Badr, that the Quraish asked the Jews whose religion was
better, theirs or Muhammad's. Encouraged by the Jews, the two tribes
marched on Medina, and their subsequent abortive attack came to be known
as the Battle of the Ditch.

After their retreat, Muhammad attacked
Medina's Jewish tribe of Banu Quraiza.[24]
It seems likely that the mufti—unless he intentionally invented
stories, a possibility that cannot be ruled out—confused the episode of the Banu Quraiza with that of Muhammad's war on Khaibar.

Far more important than these technical details and idiosyncratic
interpretations are the novelties the pamphlet introduces in Islamic
political discourse regarding the Jews. By combining the Islamic canon
with pre-Christian and Christian anti-Judaism, it attributes strengths
and powers to Jews that cannot be found in Islamic tradition by
portraying them as far more cunning and successful in their vicious
designs than previous mainstream Islamic thought had recognized or
permitted.

A simpler example of this anti-Jewish eclecticism can be found in the mufti's accusation that Jews brought plague to Arabia. This statement
evokes medieval European myths with similar themes. More significant is
the notion that Muhammad's death might have been a result of poison
given to him by a Khaibar Jewess.

To be sure, Ibn Ishak and Tabari do mention how during the illness
that led to his death Muhammad spoke to Umm Bashr, mother of his
poisoned companion, and complained about his pain, caused by poisonous
meat he had tasted three years earlier.[25]
However, in classic Islamic thought, this tradition was not interpreted
as proof that the Jewess had succeeded in her attempt on the Prophet's
life but as a desire to attribute to the Prophet the highest of virtues:
martyrdom. In Ibn Ishak's words, "The Muslims considered that the
apostle died as a martyr in addition to the prophetic office with which
God had honored him."[26]
Tabari repeats this explanation, as does Ibn Kathir (1300-73), who
referred to eight different hadiths asserting that Muhammad had been
warned by God about the poison: proof of his being a genuine prophet.
Conversely, Ibn Kathir states that "the Messenger of God died a martyr."[27]

The core theme of all these traditions is the Prophet's martyrdom and
not the Jews' lethal craft; the reader is left with the clear
impression that the two phenomena were unrelated. In contrast, the
mufti's pamphlet establishes the link and changes the emphasis from the
Prophet's virtue to the Jews' mendacity. Apparently, his intention was
to draw parallels with Christian traditions regarding Christ's killing
by the Jews. This accusation was intended to provoke more anger among
Muslims, but it also violated Islamic tradition and theology.

The implications of the mufti's claim that the Jews were successful
in killing Muhammad despite God's warning imply that Jews possess the
power to defy God's will. Such a blasphemous thought would be worse than
Christian accusation of deicide. Jesus overcame death, and by his
suffering, death and resurrection brought salvation to his community of
believers; however, Muhammad not only remained dead but also failed to
appoint his successor due to the rapid progression of his illness and
his sudden, untimely demise. Consequently, the umma was split by
different claimants to authority, and the dispute eventually led to the
fiercest internecine strife in the history of early Islam, known as the fitna.

While the mufti's Palestinian successors would not tire of
reiterating this story (as late as November 2013, Palestinian Authority
minister of religious affairs Mahmoud Habbash claimed that Yasser Arafat
was poisoned by the Jews just as they had poisoned the Prophet Muhammad
to death),[28]
most contemporary Islamic scholars have a different understanding of
this hazardous theology; inasmuch, the accusation that the Jews killed
the Prophet has largely faded as a theological theme with mainstream
Islamic commentary viewing the Jews, along the Qur'anic derision, as "adh-dhilla wa-l-maskan," translated by Yehoshafat Harkabi as "humiliation and wretchedness."[29] Bernard Lewis further explained:

The outstanding
characteristic, therefore, of the Jews as seen and as treated in the
classical Islamic world is their unimportance. ... For Muslims, he might
be hostile, cunning, and vindictive, but he was weak and ineffectual—an
object of ridicule, not fear. This image of weakness and insignificance
could only be confirmed by the subsequent history of Jewish life in
Muslim lands.[30]

Departing from this conventional view, the mufti did not interpret
contemporary events as a new historical phenomenon to which Muslims
should respond in a new, ad hoc manner. Instead, he traced Jewish
accomplishments of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and the alleged Jewish
power and ambitions, to supposed Jewish activities at the time of
Muhammad. In doing so, he created a precedent, later followed by
prominent Islamic actors in the Middle East and elsewhere, particularly
after Israel's stunning military victories over its Arab adversaries.
Thus Hamas accuses the Jews of "wiping out the Islamic caliphate" by
starting World War I and of starting the French and the communist
revolutions, establishing "clandestine organizations" and financial
power so as to colonize, exploit, and corrupt countries.[31] Likewise, former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Muhammad accused Jews of ruling the world by proxy.[32]
Attributing such gargantuan accomplishments to the Jews, many of them
at the expense of Muslims, presents a theological innovation with an
immediate political consequence. Linking early Islamic with medieval
Christian depictions of Jews results in their portrayal as "a demonic
entity," thus making their "extermination legitimate."[33]

5 comments:

Interesting conjecture that the poisoning of Arafat conjecture might be related to an assertion of parallels to the life of Mohammad, and a good analysis of the flaws of Hajj Amin's propaganda in the context of religious interpretation

Arafat's successors in the palestinian authority most likely know very well that he died of AIDS or related disease. Their claim of poisoning in arafat's case is very much meant to be a parallel to the Muslim tradition of seeing a Jewess as having tried to poison Muhammad. This is a lie and most likely they all know it. But it is politically convenient for some Arab leaders and spokesmen to charge Israel with poisoning him. They tell their rank and file lies about Jews all the time. On this look up the sites of MEMRI and PMW [palestinian media watch].

Jennie Lebel wrote a book on Husseini's career mostly focusing on his collaboration with the Germans in Croatia and Bosnia and his essential help in recruiting SS divisions of local Muslims in Yugoslavia [Bosnia and Kossovo]. As far as I know she was the first one to make extensive use of documents from Yugoslavia in Serbo-Croatian. By the way, she is a collateral relative of Theodor Herzl whose paternal family came from what is today Serbia and his grandfather may have heard the early Zionist preaching of Rabbi Alkalai early in the 19th century. Rabbi Alkalai lived around Belgrade as did Herzl's grandfather.

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In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.(Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.)